The Rise of Computing Research in East Africa: The Relationship Between Funding, Capacity and Research Community in a Nascent Field
The Rise of Computing Research in East Africa: The Relationship Between Funding, Capacity and Research Community in a Nascent Field
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DOI：
10.1007/s11024-017-9341-1
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发表时间：
2018-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Holden, Kerry
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Harsh, Matthew;Bal, Ravtosh;Holden, Kerry
肯尼亚和乌干达充满活力的计算机科学家研究团体的出现是在新自由主义私有化、商业化以及来自捐助者和公司的跨国资本流动的背景下出现的。我们探讨这种资助环境如何配置研究文化和研究实践，这被概念化为研究社区的两个主要组成部分。数据来自一项为期三年的纵向研究，利用在内罗毕和坎帕拉收集的访谈、民族志和调查数据。我们记录了管理者如何通过建立学术项目和培训越来越多的博士来塑造研究文化，并分析这如何与政治经济、计算机科学的认知本质和社会文化因素（如关键参与者的创业领导力和独特的创新文化）之间复杂的相互作用联系起来。在捐助者驱动的资助环境中，研究实践涉及科学家通过采用独特的专业身份和创造性地构建项目来构建自己的本地化研究重点。因此，新自由主义政治经济背景明显影响了研究界，但并没有削弱计算研究能力，也没有让研究人员没有任何机构来开展研究项目。这些案例说明了非洲的知识生产场所如何获得一定程度的研究自主权、在科技活动中心领域的一定程度的全球能力，以及如何表达其区域文化优先事项和愿望。此外，这些案例表明，社会分析师必须在理解资金和政治经济如何塑造科学知识的方法中平衡结构与文化、地点和机构。
The emergence of vibrant research communities of computer scientists in Kenya and Uganda has occurred in the context of neoliberal privatization, commercialization, and transnational capital flows from donors and corporations. We explore how this funding environment configures research culture and research practices, which are conceptualized as two main components of a research community. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study utilizing interview, ethnographic and survey data collected in Nairobi and Kampala. We document how administrators shape research culture by building academic programs and training growing numbers of PhDs, and analyze how this is linked to complicated interactions between political economy, the epistemic nature of computer science and sociocultural factors like entrepreneurial leadership of key actors and distinctive cultures of innovation. In a donor-driven funding environment, research practice involves scientists constructing their own localized research priorities by adopting distinctive professional identities and creatively structuring projects. The neoliberal political economic context thus clearly influenced research communities, but did not debilitate computing research capacity nor leave researchers without any agency to carry out research programs. The cases illustrate how sites of knowledge production in Africa can gain some measure of research autonomy, some degree of global competency in a central arena of scientific and technological activity, and some expression of their regional cultural priorities and aspirations. Furthermore, the cases suggest that social analysts must balance structure with culture, place and agency in their approaches to understanding how funding and political economy shape scientific knowledge.